CavsHQ Wednesday - Celtic Size Confounds Kyrie

One week ago Tuesday, the Cavaliers were sitting at 4-2 in the middle of their franchise-long 8-game homestand, having come from behind to beat the Detroit Pistons thanks to some fourth quarter brilliance by Kyrie Irving.

Flash forward 8 days, and the Cavs have a 2-game losing streak, having been unable to close a tiny fourth quarter gap in two winnable home games. Irving shot just 2-for-9 in the fourth quarter of the two losses, and was essentially erased in the fourth quarter thanks to the length of the Celtic interior defense. Two bench players (Alonzo Gee and Tristan Thompson) had as many points (13) each as three starters (Antawn Jamison, Anthony Parker and Semih Erden) managed the entire game.

So what happened?

Well, more than anything, Kyrie Irving is human. And still just 6'2".

- Irving was rendered normal in the fourth quarter by the Boston Celtics defense. They were in his head a little bit, as Irving repeatedly chose to shoot layup-floater combos 5 feet from the basket rather than getting all the way to the rim.

It looks like Irving has plenty of space between himself and the basket. And he does. But as you can see, Irving has already started his gather way too far from the basket. He is stuck in no-man's land, trying to shoot quickly because he's afraid of Garnett's ability to close from behind and block the shot.

The result was this awkward shot that had very little chance of going in. Worse, because he opted for space and a bad angle, there was no chance that Irving could draw contact and get to the free throw line. Irving created a very difficult shot for himself, and that is directly contrary to how he's managed to be so effective in fourth quarters this season.

- Irving's career as a 6'2" scorer may ultimately be decided by his ability to not end up in this position. And to be fair, he attacked much more aggressively on his last drive of the game when he collided with Paul Pierce, though he once again picked up his dribble too far from the basket. Irving has done an excellent job of keeping his dribble so far this season, but last night showed just how much harder it is to do that against an excellent defensive team.

- Irving also committed a terrible turnover late in the game that turned a one-point Cavalier lead into a one-point Celtics lead with a minute remaining.

Irving has Garnett beat at this point - he can get to the rim far faster than Garnett can chase him. There are two Celtics defenders, Pierce and Bass, guarding the right side of the paint to prevent Irving from getting to the basket, but Garnett is not a factor at this point.

That is, until Irving makes him a factor by throwing a sideways, in-the-air pass to Jamison. Garnett may be getting older, but he's still 6'11" with great instincts. Garnett tips the ball away, and the Celtics are off to the races precisely because Irving coupled a bad plan with bad execution on this play.

- The point of both of these plays is that Kyrie Irving made poor decisions because the size of the Celtics defense made him do things that he wouldn't normally want to do. No matter what you may think of Irving, his 6'2" body with only above-average athleticism means he is going to struggle against tall, long defenders.

- So why do I feel okay about that? Because everyone struggles more against tall, long defenders. That's why the Mavericks won the championship last year - they coupled a very good offensive team with the tallest, longest defender in the league in Tyson Chandler. The Lakers won two championships in a row because they had two 7-foot big men that could crowd the lane in Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, and the Celtics won before that because they had Garnett and Kendrick Perkins defending the back line. This loss reminds everyone, from Kyrie to the coaching staff to the fans to the sports radio crowd that size matters in the NBA, and you had better be prepared to deal with it.

Other notes:

- Down by 1 with less than 30 seconds remaining, the Cavs had a chance to foul Rajon Rondo, a guy who scored 0 points on the night and a 61% free throw shooter. Hindsight is 20/20, but the Cavs should have fouled there. Worst case scenario they end up down 3 with 25 seconds left and a chance to extend the game.

- As it turned out, the Cavs got themselves into a situation where they were horribly mismatched on both ends of a screen-roll. Jamison was matched up against Rondo with the ball, and Irving was stuck guarding Garnett. Why Rondo refused to shoot is beyond me, but it made just as much sense to go to Garnett against Irving. The Cavs got lucky with the Garnett miss, but then Irving didn't seal off the shooter - probably because he had to jump as high as he possibly could to even hope to challenge the shot - and Garnett grabbed the easy offensive rebound and was fouled. Nothing about that sequence was in the Cavs' best interest. A foul at any point after the ball was out of Ray Allen's hands would have made sense.

- Once again the Cavs weren't ready to play at tip-off. Remember a few seasons ago when they got into the habit of playing poorly in the third quarter? Yeah, these things become habits.

- Tristan Thompson was really good in the second half last night, with 9 points, 8 rebounds, a blocked shot, no fouls and no turnovers. He once again looked like a professional basketball player out there, demonstrating more patience when he caught the ball going to the hoop.

- That good work in the third quarter prompted Byron Scott to leave Thompson in the game for the fourth quarter. Last week Scott chose not to use Thompson late in the game for fear that Thompson's poor free throw shooting (45% FT) would hurt the team. That fear was realized when Thompson was fouled and split the free throws late in Tuesday's game, leaving the Cavs with a 1-point deficit.

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